Colapinto

Franco Colapinto was born on May 27, 2003, in Pilar, a town in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. His father, Aníbal Leónidas Colapinto, is a lawyer who was also a co-owner of the Turismo Carretera team JC Competición in the 2010s; his mother is Andrea Laura Trofimczuk. He has a sister, Martina. Through his father’s side, he descends from Italian immigrants; through his mother’s, from Ukrainians settled in Argentina. His great-grandfather, Vicente Colapinto, was a physician from Bari who graduated from the University of Naples and settled in Entre Ríos.

Colapinto began karting in national and Rotax championships in 2013. He won the Argentine national pre-junior title in 2016, the same year he first competed internationally. In 2018, he won a karting exhibition event at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires alongside María García Puig. That year, he also made his single-seater debut in Spanish F4 with Drivex, winning one of the four races he entered. In 2019, he won the Spanish F4 championship full-time, taking 11 victories in 21 races and building a lead of nearly 100 points. That season, he also debuted in the Euroformula Open and the Formula Renault Eurocup.

Colapinto’s path to Formula 1 began on the karting tracks of Argentina. After winning the national pre-junior championship in 2016, he made his single-seater debut in 2018 with Drivex in the Spanish F4 championship, winning one of the four races he entered. The following year, at sixteen, he dominated the full Spanish F4 season, taking the title with eleven victories in twenty-one races and a margin of nearly 100 points.

That same year, he debuted in the Euroformula Open and the Formula Renault Eurocup. A third-place finish in the 2020 Toyota Racing Series and another third in the 2021 Eurocup followed. In 2021, he also stepped into endurance racing, finishing third in the Asian Le Mans Series. A fourth-place finish in the 2023 FIA Formula 3 championship with MP Motorsport set the stage for a partial F2 campaign in 2024 with the same team. After ten rounds, Williams Racing called him up to replace Logan Sargeant, handing him his F1 debut at the 2024 Italian Grand Prix.

Colapinto’s Formula 1 career began abruptly in 2024, when Williams dropped Logan Sargeant mid-season and called up the 21-year-old Argentine from its driver academy. He made his debut at the Italian Grand Prix, becoming the first Argentine to start an F1 race in 23 years. Over nine rounds in 2024, he scored points on his second start in Baku and again in Austin, finishing the season with five points from five classified finishes. Despite flashes of pace, Williams did not retain him for 2025.

Alpine signed Colapinto as a reserve driver for 2025, and when Esteban Ocon departed mid-season, Colapinto was promoted to a race seat for the final rounds. He remained with Alpine into 2026, completing a total of 31 Grands Prix across his career. He never scored a podium, pole position, fastest lap, or championship title. His career statistics – zero wins, zero podiums, zero poles – reflect a driver who entered F1 under emergency circumstances and was given limited opportunity to prove himself at the front of the grid.

Born in Pilar, a town in the Buenos Aires province, on 27 May 2003, Franco Colapinto is the son of lawyer Aníbal Leónidas Colapinto and Andrea Laura Trofimczuk. He has a sister, Martina. His father, a former driver in Bahía Blanca, was also co-owner of the TC Competición team in the Turismo Carretera series during the 2010s. Through his father’s side, Colapinto is of Italian descent; his mother’s family are Ukrainian immigrants to Argentina.

He attended primary school at Colegio del Pilar and later enrolled at the Escuela Técnica Roberto Rocca in Campana. At 14, he moved to Italy to pursue racing, eventually returning to Argentina to finish secondary school with a personalized study plan. A street in the town of Luján bears his name, and he is a known supporter of Boca Juniors.

In 2023, he had a brief relationship with French model and influencer Estelle Ogilvy. Since 2026, he has been in a relationship with Argentine actress and singer Maia Reficco. He currently resides in Mallorca, Spain.

Colapinto’s time in Formula 1 was brief—just 31 starts across two seasons, no wins, no podiums, no poles—but his trajectory through the junior categories and his sudden promotion to the grid in 2024 left a mark that outlasted his statistics. He entered the sport as a mid-season substitute for Logan Sargeant at Williams, a driver who had never raced a full F2 season, and delivered performances solid enough to earn a second year with the team before moving to Alpine for 2026. That arc, from F4 Spanish champion in 2019 to a Formula 1 seat in five years, is the kind of rapid ascent that junior series scouts still reference. No driver from Argentina had started a Grand Prix since 2001; Colapinto ended a 23-year drought, and the weight of that national representation—carried by a driver born in Pilar, raised partly in Italy, and still only 23 at the end of his final season—is perhaps his most durable legacy. He did not rewrite record books. He reopened a door.